


The night is dark and full of promises

by elephant_eyelash



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Could Be Canon, F/M, Love Triangle, Potentially out of character, Rickon is a bit of a schmoozer here I guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-01
Updated: 2012-04-01
Packaged: 2017-11-02 21:32:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/373559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elephant_eyelash/pseuds/elephant_eyelash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for clashofqueens's LJ 'Minor character ASOIAF ficathon': Shireen/Rickon - Future fic "Everything that has a beginning has an end".</p>
            </blockquote>





	The night is dark and full of promises

She remembers the story of the pale serpent the night before her wedding.

Maester Cressen hadn't seemed so old then, but his skin still reminded her of the yellowed paper of the history books, and his fingertips still smelt of damp ink. He had told her history was a circle, a pale serpent eating itself, repeating everything over and over again. That serpent had haunted her dreams sometimes, in the days after the greyscale, when she imagined her new, dead skin rippling like a snake. In the dream the serpent would gorge upon itself, force her to eat her dead, diseased skin, not listening to her cries.

That pale serpent hadn't bothered her in a while. She was a lady grown now, a lady betrothed. She tries to smile but feels it coil up in her stomach, dying.

She hadn't met him so long ago. The boy with the dark direwolf and the dimpled cheeks. All the ladies of her Father's court had sighed and cooed over him, but he remained wild still, pacing the Wall like an anxious, caged animal. Shireen had spotted him through her window a few times, his bow in hand, his breath clouding against the moon. It was then she felt her first quickened heartbeat, hidden behind the curtains staring at the Lost Prince of Winterfell.

It was only when Belle, one of her bedmaids, told her that the Lost Prince had been asking over her that Shireen felt a stirring of hope. He had wanted to know why the princess would watch him each night. At dinner he would sometimes try to catch her eye, but Shireen refused, instead fixing her eyes upon the grain of the table and listening to the voices surrounding her, protecting her from his gaze.

Then one day beneath her pillow she found a sprig of dried wildflowers, tied unmistakably with the dark hair of a direwolf. It had to be a cruel jape, she reasoned. No man wanted her. Edric had to have her because they were betrothed. The Stark boy was handsome, able. Even as he danced with her all the women watched him, his easy, naive grace as he twirled her across the room. But it was when he whispered into her ear; lips ever so tenderly brushing past the greyscale, making her warm down to her legs, because she realised he was not afraid; to meet him that she knew maybe this wasn't a half-formed dream of a lonely girl.

"I've seen you watch me." He said as she approached, accompanied by Belle and the cover of the night. "Why?"

Shireen twisted her hands together. "The Prince is an able warrior. I was admiring his training drills."

He grinned. "I don't see you watch Leathers or my brother Jon."

Shireen winced in the darkness. But then she could hear him move closer, the snow muffling his footsteps, and he had his hands on her shoulders. He was taller than her, lean and lithe.

"You shouldn't hide your face, you know." He said. "Nor your smile."

"I have little reason to smile, my Prince." She said, her voice strangled. "For the night is dark and full of terrors."

He kissed her. Gently, chastely, like a Knight may do in a book. She jumped. I am betrothed, her head screamed, I am promised to Edric. Her Mother and Father would banish her, hate her forever.

"The night is dark and full of promises." He said, whispering into her ear, still grinning. "I would like us to meet again."

"I am promised to my cousin." She said feebly.

"It's not my intention to ruin you." He said. "I just want to see you smile."

She met him most nights, never daring to enter his bedchamber or go beyond kissing him. They would play with Shaggydog and he would wrap his cloak around her. At night they would count the stars and he would tell her of Skaagos, of lost brothers and sisters and dreams of a ruined home. Quietly she would tell him of Maester Cressen, of poor dear dead Patchface, of her feverish memories of the ilnness that had marked her so. In the darkness they shared their loneliness, their dreams. In between murmured kisses their hearts thrummed, trying their best to erase the world outside. 

It had taken her a few glasses of dreamwine to recover when her Father announced she would wed Edric soon. She lay in her bed, ill and thinking of him as she listened to the dying howls of Shaggydog's bark against the turning wind. Perhaps she would die like this, a maiden shrouded in her grief, with nothing but the ghost of his kiss to see her through to the afterlife. The night held no promises now. But her body somehow managed to live on.

She stared into the mirror. Her skin had no colour left, her eyes were dark, like a bride of the afterlife. She placed the dried wildflowers underneath her wedding dress, close to her heart, and wept. Belle tried to soothe her, but all her energy had left her, and it took the rough grasp of her Father to ensure she made the way to the fires, to Edric.

Edric was a good man, a good warrior, and he would make a good husband. In another life she would have learned to love him.

She could feel him there, watching her, and she thought of the pale serpent again. Maester Cressen had been wrong. Everything had a death to it. She would remember the nights together, yes, but only as echoes. Rickon and Shireen: the Lost Prince, the Lost Princess. No songs would be sung except by them, perhaps when they were old and wandering around their empty castles together on other sides of the world, to people who would not listen.


End file.
